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Monday, December 13, 2004

Perhaps Butch Davis wasn’t as bad a coach as everyone thought!

Sure, he was a terrible player personnel director and a control freak (he put the team in this mess and deserved to be fired). But consider that, excluding the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Browns either won or were in position, late in the fourth quarter, to win all the rest of their games – that is until Cincinnati. What changed in Cincy?

Responding to criticism of his offense, and with his job on the line, Davis clearly decided to pull out all the stops and let Kelly Holcomb air it out. Until then, the wide receivers were non-existent and the offense was predicated on ball-control – short runs and short passes. It was boring and the results were lackluster, to put it mildly. But the number of sacks was fewer, the field position was much better, and the defense wasn’t spending 3/4ths of the game on the field.

In addition, everyone thought Davis was too gentle with William Green. But now they’re seeing what bad discipline really is now that they have an interim-coach who is concerned about being popular with his players. William Green’s rushing performance is plummeting and he’s developed a case of fumblitis. Green hasn’t looked this bad at any point in his up-and-down career.

I still think it was the right decision to fire him when they did. But if it’s token wins you want, a Davis-led team would’ve broken the losing the streak and beat the Bills. The management of the team chose Robiskie because they believed he’d get them the best draft choice possible. At this rate, they’ll be picking number 2 – or so I hope.